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Monday, January 9, 2012

Ted

[Updated April 29, 2013]Ted is an episode which seems to generate
radically different views among fans. Some rate it near the bottom, others like
it. I’m in the latter category. I thought John Ritter was terrific as Ted, and
I liked the way the episode explored the limits a Slayer needs to observe
(though, admittedly, this will be done much better in S3). I agree with the way
Myles McNutt summarized the episode in his review:

““Ted” is just a sharp little episode: it doesn’t try to
fundamentally change the series, or explicitly create any sort of patterns, but
it works hard to make us question the show’s central premise and delivers some
powerful emotional moments that may eventually be undone but which linger on
with characters in a way that Whedon is very fond of, and which makes for a
compelling hour of television.”

The episode is also important for a key scene in the season finale of S2
and for the turning point moment of S3. And yes, I do believe Joss had things
planned that far ahead, at least in outline. Ted will have more immediate importance too. There’s a clue to what
I mean in the scene with Buffy and Giles in the graveyard.

Since I can’t discuss those points yet, let’s go back and consider
Buffy’s mindset when Ted attacked her and see how we should judge her behavior.
I think part of the reason she felt so guilty is that she knew she was spoiling
for a fight with Ted: “I was *so* hoping you'd do that.” Admittedly, we’re
talking about an adult man (to all appearances) in the room of a 16 year old
girl, where he had no right to be, and he physically assaulted her after
invading her privacy. He started the violence and she surely had the right to
respond in some way, but she had to think that reacting as the Slayer rather
than as a person led her to kill someone.

It could also be argued that she should have backed off once she had the
upper hand and that her anger at Ted led her to continue. Joyce pleaded with
her to stop and Buffy herself said later that she “lost control”. Plus, we have
her behavior with the vampire earlier in the episode. Slaying demons in
metaphor is fine, but taking out her emotions on a real person would be highly
dangerous.

On the other hand, Ted wasn’t human after all. She sensed something was
wrong with Ted, as she said even before they went miniature golfing, and her
instincts are very good. Those instincts may have guided her reaction. Then
too, his behavior at the golf course confirmed her suspicion that something was
wrong with him. There’s another reason I could mention along these lines but it
involves a spoiler for S6.

It’s also quite possible that Buffy used Slayer strength because Ted
didn’t react to anything less. She certainly didn’t try to kill him, but his
blows were obviously more than human judging by their impact on her (confirmed
by what we later saw in the second fight); she must have sensed that and it
does appear that she escalated the violence in response as she felt threatened.
Her hardest blows, remember, came after he knocked her to the floor (not an
easy thing to do to a Slayer) and began choking her. The blow might well have
killed an ordinary human being and the chokehold showed a possible intent to do
so.

Ultimately, in my view, Buffy’s own issues did affect her reaction, as
Giles told her earlier when he noted that the subtext was becoming text.
Buffy’s at risk of demonizing someone who’s not actually a demon simply because
she’s upset by the situation. That’s dangerous in a person, much more so in a
Slayer; in a way, this is the flip side of the coin from WML where Buffy encouraged Kendra to use her anger as a weapon.

What really vindicates Buffy is her willingness to take full
responsibility for what she’d done. When Buffy accepted her destiny as The
Slayer in Prophecy Girl, that meant
she had to accept the consequences of her actions as the Slayer. This is the
first time we see Buffy arguably misuse her power, but she passes an important
test when she takes full responsibility for her actions.

Trivia notes: (1) Captain & Tennille, the subject of Willow’s and Xander’s conversation in the teaser, were a pop music duo from the ‘70s. The more interesting question, though, is just why the episode opens with this whimsical and seemingly random dialogue about which of the two was in control. I saw it as a reference to the end of WML, with the rise of Drusilla. (2) Ted’s ability as a cook is probably a joke based on John Ritter’s role in Three’s Company, where he was a cooking school student. (3) Buffy described her mother as “like Stepford” when Ted was around. The Stepford Wives was a book and movie about robotically happy wives who were kept that way by their husbands as a form of control. (4) Buffy decided that she and her mother would watch the movie Thelma and Louise. That would be the perfect movie after a day of dealing with abusive men.

5 comments:

I love "Ted", and I totally agree with you about it being one of the most divisive in fandom. But I love John Ritter, and I love the moral dilemma for Buffy, and as a daughter of a single mother who found some really bad guys who looked good on paper, so to speak, I love that it addresses that too. I also LOVE that it introduces the possibility of superscience(as the ability is called in the tabeltop RPG) so early in the show's mythology.

SPOILER

As I've stated before, I started the show in the later seasons. My first ep was Fool for Love, and I caught later S5 eps, but I started watching in earnest after the switch to UPN, watching the previous season in reruns on FX at the same time. So I was slightly irritated when I was first introduced to the show's usage of robots, as I thought it was ludicrous to have sci-fi on a fantasy show out of the blue. But seeing Ted showed me that the sci-fi aspects were there from the start.

I've never been a big fan of Ted, but I found that it was effective because I've been creeped out by John Ritter in other roles since then, so he clearly did a fantastic job in the role...and my curiosity is now highly piqued by your references to the foreshadowing in this ep...

Just wanted to comment to say that I'm loving this blog. I'm re-watching the series following along with these reviews and I'm finding myself enjoying a number of episodes, such as this one, which I never really considered revisiting before. Your comments do a great job at revealing depth in this show that I, as someone who isn't particularly skilled at analyzing fiction, never really noticed before. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

I've collected and substantially edited the original BtVS blog posts into an ebook, which is by now very significantly better than the original essays. It's available here. I continue to update the book regularly. You can get the updated version at any time by asking Amazon, though you'll lose any bookmarks or highlights if you do that.
There's also now a paperback version, available from the same link.
For links to the original posts, scroll down below.

About Me

I grew up reading all kinds of F&SF. Oddly enough, I guess, for someone with my tastes, I'd never heard of the new TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My 9 year old daughter told me about it and asked me to watch it with her.
I got hooked pretty quickly and soon moved, like most Buffy fans, to the internet for more discussion. I found a site called All Things Philosophical on Buffy, etc. and made that a home. The posts here ultimately derive from that experience, combined with re-watching the show many times. I hope everyone who reads here loves the series as much as I do.